Best music players

One of the biggest factors that drive people
towards buying a smartphone is that it
doubles up as a handy music player. Feature
phones had music players too, but some of
the amazing music player apps available on
smartphones just blow features phones -
and even dedicated portable media players -
out of the water.
Android, in particular, is a favourite among
those who have a large collection of music
stored locally. This is because Android
phones let you drag and drop music from a
computer to the phone, without needing any
additional software to start playing your
favourite songs. Also, many Android
smartphones come with expandable storage,
which means you can easily carry your
media with you.
Here are our favourite apps for playing MP3
and other audio files.
Google Play Music
This is the music player app that ships with
Nexus and other 'stock' Android phones. It's
a fairly decent music player that looks good
thanks to Material Design . If you just want a
player that'll play your songs, this will serve
your needs. But if you prefer to browse by
artist, albums, etc, those views are hidden in
the sidebar. It also has advanced equaliser
settings in the sidebar.
Download Google Play Music
Musixmatch
Musixmatch is a decent music player but we
recommend you install it for how it enhances
the overall music experience on your
smartphone. Musixmatch has a floating
lyrics widget that works with apps such as
Google Play Music and Spotify. This widget
pulls lyrics of the currently playing song and
scrolls automatically so you only see the
line that's playing right now. Download this
app just for the awesome widget.
Download Musixmatch
Rocket Player
Rocket Player may not be the prettiest music
player but it is the best option if you want to
sync your iTunes library with your Android
phone. This isn't a free feature - you'll have
to pay Rs. 60 and buy the iSyncr app (Rs.
99) by the same developer to sync your
iTunes library and metadata. If you use an
Android phone and iTunes on Windows or
Mac, then this combination of apps will
serve you well.
DoubleTwist is a good alternative for iTunes
syncing, but you'll need to pay Rs. 300 to
unlock that feature.
Download Rocket Player
Shuttle
Shuttle is among the best looking music
player apps on Android. If a developer
makes a Material Design App even better
than Google's own, it deserves special
mention. Shuttle has done that and it shows
tabs such as artists, albums, etc on the
app's home screen and lets you swipe
between these tabs. It also has a neat
equaliser and a Suggested tab to help you
pick a song quickly from your large library.
Download Shuttle
Orpheus
Orpheus is a minimalist music player that
will appeal to some people, but others might
find it confusing. It has neat tab views like
Shuttle and a player toolbar at the bottom
with just one button - play/pause. Double
tapping this button brings up other actions
such as next track, etc and you can even
"flick" this button out to switch to now
playing view. These actions are configurable
so if that's the kind of thing you like, give it
a whirl.
Download Orpheus
Poweramp
The free version of this app is just a two-
week trial, after which you'll have to pay Rs.
60 to keep using it. That said, Poweramp is
the best music player app for nerds. It has
advanced equaliser controls and features
such as gapless playback, replay gain, etc.
We don't recommend this app for casual
listeners, but it's a must have for the
compulsive audio output tweaker.
Download Poweramp
These are the best music players we found
for Android. There are several more good
ones, but if there's any app in particular that
you prefer, let us know via the comments.